Crisis Energética Foros

Sustainable Oil?

By Chris Bennett
©2004 WorldNetDaily.com
7-10-4


About 80 miles off of the coast of Louisiana lies a mostly submerged mountain, the top of which is known as Eugene Island. The portion underwater is an eerie-looking, sloping tower jutting up from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, with deep fissures and perpendicular faults which spontaneously spew natural gas. A significant reservoir of crude oil was discovered nearby in the late '60s, and by 1970, a platform named Eugene 330 was busily producing about 15,000 barrels a day of high-quality crude oil.

By the late '80s, the platform's production had slipped to less than 4,000 barrels per day, and was considered pumped out. Done. Suddenly, in 1990, production soared back to 15,000 barrels a day, and the reserves which had been estimated at 60 million barrels in the '70s, were recalculated at 400 million barrels. Interestingly, the measured geological age of the new oil was quantifiably different than the oil pumped in the '70s.

Analysis of seismic recordings revealed the presence of a "deep fault" at the base of the Eugene Island reservoir which was gushing up a river of oil from some deeper and previously unknown source.

Similar results were seen at other Gulf of Mexico oil wells. Similar results were found in the Cook Inlet oil fields in Alaska. Similar results were found in oil fields in Uzbekistan. Similarly in the Middle East, where oil exploration and extraction have been underway for at least the last 20 years, known reserves have doubled. Currently there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 680 billion barrels of Middle East reserve oil.

Creating that much oil would take a big pile of dead dinosaurs and fermenting prehistoric plants. Could there be another source for crude oil?

An intriguing theory now permeating oil company research staffs suggests that crude oil may actually be a natural inorganic product, not a stepchild of unfathomable time and organic degradation. The theory suggests there may be huge, yet-to-be-discovered reserves of oil at depths that dwarf current world estimates.

The theory is simple: Crude oil forms as a natural inorganic process which occurs between the mantle and the crust, somewhere between 5 and 20 miles deep. The proposed mechanism is as follows:

Methane (CH4) is a common molecule found in quantity throughout our solar system - huge concentrations exist at great depth in the Earth.

At the mantle-crust interface, roughly 20,000 feet beneath the surface, rapidly rising streams of compressed methane-based gasses hit pockets of high temperature causing the condensation of heavier hydrocarbons. The product of this condensation is commonly known as crude oil.

Some compressed methane-based gasses migrate into pockets and reservoirs we extract as "natural gas."

In the geologically "cooler," more tectonically stable regions around the globe, the crude oil pools into reservoirs.

In the "hotter," more volcanic and tectonically active areas, the oil and natural gas continue to condense and eventually to oxidize, producing carbon dioxide and steam, which exits from active volcanoes.

Periodically, depending on variations of geology and Earth movement, oil seeps to the surface in quantity, creating the vast oil-sand deposits of Canada and Venezuela, or the continual seeps found beneath the Gulf of Mexico and Uzbekistan.

Periodically, depending on variations of geology, the vast, deep pools of oil break free and replenish existing known reserves of oil.

There are a number of observations across the oil-producing regions of the globe that support this theory, and the list of proponents begins with Mendelev (who created the periodic table of elements) and includes Dr.Thomas Gold (founding director of Cornell University Center for Radiophysics and Space Research) and Dr. J.F. Kenney of Gas Resources Corporations, Houston, Texas.

In his 1999 book, "The Deep Hot Biosphere," Dr. Gold presents compelling evidence for inorganic oil formation. He notes that geologic structures where oil is found all correspond to "deep earth" formations, not the haphazard depositions we find with sedimentary rock, associated fossils or even current surface life.

He also notes that oil extracted from varying depths from the same oil field have the same chemistry - oil chemistry does not vary as fossils vary with increasing depth. Also interesting is the fact that oil is found in huge quantities among geographic formations where assays of prehistoric life are not sufficient to produce the existing reservoirs of oil. Where then did it come from?

Another interesting fact is that every oil field throughout the world has outgassing helium. Helium is so often present in oil fields that helium detectors are used as oil-prospecting tools. Helium is an inert gas known to be a fundamental product of the radiological decay or uranium and thorium, identified in quantity at great depths below the surface of the earth, 200 and more miles below. It is not found in meaningful quantities in areas that are not producing methane, oil or natural gas. It is not a member of the dozen or so common elements associated with life. It is found throughout the solar system as a thoroughly inorganic product.

Even more intriguing is evidence that several oil reservoirs around the globe are refilling themselves, such as the Eugene Island reservoir - not from the sides, as would be expected from cocurrent organic reservoirs, but from the bottom up.

Dr. Gold strongly believes that oil is a "renewable, primordial soup continually manufactured by the Earth under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attached by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs."

Smaller oil companies and innovative teams are using this theory to justify deep oil drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, among other locations, with some success. Dr. Kenney is on record predicting that parts of Siberia contain a deep reservoir of oil equal to or exceeding that already discovered in the Middle East.

Could this be true?

In August 2002, in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US)," Dr. Kenney published a paper, which had a partial title of "The genesis of hydrocarbons and the origin of petroleum." Dr. Kenney and three Russian coauthors conclude:

The Hydrogen-Carbon system does not spontaneously evolve hydrocarbons at pressures less than 30 Kbar, even in the most favorable environment. The H-C system evolves hydrocarbons under pressures found in the mantle of the Earth and at temperatures consistent with that environment.

He was quoted as stating that "competent physicists, chemists, chemical engineers and men knowledgeable of thermodynamics have known that natural petroleum does not evolve from biological materials since the last quarter of the 19th century."

Deeply entrenched in our culture is the belief that at some point in the relatively near future we will see the last working pump on the last functioning oil well screech and rattle, and that will be that. The end of the Age of Oil. And unless we find another source of cheap energy, the world will rapidly become a much darker and dangerous place.

If Dr. Gold and Dr. Kenney are correct, this "the end of the world as we know it" scenario simply won't happen. Think about it ... while not inexhaustible, deep Earth reserves of inorganic crude oil and commercially feasible extraction would provide the world with generations of low-cost fuel. Dr. Gold has been quoted saying that current worldwide reserves of crude oil could be off by a factor of over 100.

A Hedberg Conference, sponsored by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, was scheduled to discuss and publicly debate this issue. Papers were solicited from interested academics and professionals. The conference was scheduled to begin June 9, 2003, but was canceled at the last minute. A new date has yet to be set.


Chris Bennett manages an environmental engineering division for a West Coast technology firm. He and his wife of 26 years make their home on the San Francisco Bay.

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
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Interview: Dr. Colin Campbell - Petroleum Geologist
December 18, 2002

Q15. Are 'crustal' hydrocarbons and gas hydrates going to save us?

A. We,ve talked conventional oil and non-conventional oil, there's still further, more extreme notions of still other kinds of oil that might be there. We might touch on the theory of Thomas Gold, the physicist, who developed a theory that oil comes not from algae, such as I've described, but from deep in the Earth's crust, left over from some primordial event in the formation of the Earth, when hydrocarbons were formed.

This might or might not appear to be an attractive theory in astrophysical terms who knows, but one can say that it is not accepted by the industry in any sense, and that since the Eighties, the geochemical revolution of the Eighties, which gave us for the first time really before we had kind of a gut feel for what a source rock was if it looked black and it stank of oil, you would say that was a source rock.

But then in the Eighties came isotopic work and geochemistry, which was able to identify the isotopic signature of algae and other and chlorophyll and so forth in the oils, and it could relate the oil in the well from the source rock not the reservoir, but the source rock where it was formed.

So this advance in chemistry has really explained most accumulations. Now there are a few people still going around promoting this idea of the crustal origin of oil - they draw attention to various reservoirs where oil does occur in granite. For example, the famous granite wash of Oklahoma, which is the surface of a granite which is eroded, weathered, fractured oil from quite conventional sources has collected in the top of this ancient crystalline rock, and it's not the only example, there are several around the world.

And there is one man, Mr. Kenny, who is a member, surprisingly of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and he has over the last few years in fact, he intervened with the IEA to say that, well Russian research had confirmed this idea of the deep-seated origin of oil, and that there were fields in the Ukraine that so demonstrated this.

Well, the German geological survey took this proposal seriously enough to go and investigate it, and find again, that though it did indeed occur in crystalline rocks, there were perfectly normal explanations of conventional source rocks on the flanks of the structure, and the oil just migrated in to fill it up.

Then the Swedes, a few years ago were somehow persuaded to deal with their own energy security, by drilling to seven thousand metre holes into a meteor crater place in a granite body, in the hope of finding this deep oil. They failed. So really this is a red herring of no substance, but there are still certain people who promote it, and may even believe in it but there are perpetual energy machines, and there is no limit to the extreme solutions that people may dream about.

(sobre los hidratos de metano)

Then the other thing that's almost as bad as that, is hydrates. And this is another complicated story. Hydrates have long been known to the oil industry. They are kind of an ice like molecule, containing methane, and this forms in cold conditions and has been a source of nuisance to the industry, clogging pipelines and so forth.

It occurs in cold conditions and there was a field in Siberia, Messoyakha field, and somehow word flowed out when it was under the Soviets, that this was producing methane hydrates. So there was another flurry of interest in this new source of oil,

Then some Russian physicists determined the physical conditions under which the stuff formed, and found that it would occur in permafrost conditions in the Arctic, and also in the frozen depths of the ocean.

And so then the interest turned to finding this stuff in the ocean depths, and quite apart from that, there has been oceanic research going on in, drilling holes into the seabed for academic research and so forth, and they identified the seismic reflector, which I can't quite remember now why exactly, but it was supposed to relate to the hydrates that were there, and these academic wells that were being drilled, were being drilled without blowout preventers, and the last thing they wanted to find was a hydrocarbon accumulation. So they deliberately located these things away from this seismic reflector, which was supposed to indicate these hydrates.

Well, eventually, about two years ago, on the Blake Plateau, off the United States, they finally went deliberately to investigate this seismic reflector. When they drilled through it, they found it didn,t reflect any hydrates, and it was just an artefact of a seismic thing, where you get sort of multiple echoes off something else. So it was dismissed.

Now the record today of finding hydrates has been extremely irregular you may find a metre or two, somewhere, then drill another well a hundred metres away and there's nothing. So this occurs in granules and in laminae, and locally may get a little pod of the stuff, and so it's so disseminated and since it's
a solid, methane can,t accumulate in one spot sufficiently to be an economic deposit.

Now there's still another confusion, since nothing is black and white in any of this business. You sometimes get seepages of ordinary gas that come to the sea bed, and you may get a big pod of hydrate formed on the seepage of gas from depth here you get big chunk of the stuff, and by all mean it's a little deposit that with some extraordinary expensive and difficult technology could perhaps be produced.

But it's small, and it's limited, and it's local and this is no panacea to solve the future, but it's a golden story for research you go on studying the damned for ever, every result gives equivocal answers and so you can do more. And the Japanese, who are so concerned about their own energy supply, have sponsored a lot of work in this direction.

They even got a special boat built to reinvestigate all this, but it continues to offer equivocal or negative results. It is well said that this is the fuel for future, and likely to remain

Los Hidrocarburos No Son Fósiles

Por Paul Sheridan

"The Deep Hot Biosphere por Thomas Gold New York: Copernicus, 1999 Tapas duras, 235 pp., $ 27.00"


El libro The Deep Hot Biosphere (La Profunda y Caliente Biosfera)es la culminación de más de cincuenta años de trabajo en la vida de su notable autor, el astrofísico Thomas Gold, de la Universidad de Cornell. Gold fue el director fundador del Centro de Radiofísica e Investigación Espacial de la Universidad de Cornell, Presidente del Departamento de Astronomía de Cornell y es el autor de más de 260 trabajos en el área de la cosmología, zoología, física y astronomía.

La tesis de Gold en The Deep Hot Biosphere es simple: los hidrocarburos han existido desde los primeros tiempos del universo, y son parte del proceso de formación de los planetas.

Sus componentes, hidrógeno y carbón, se originaron en el "caldo primordial" del que se formó la Tierra. Dice Gold que el metano y el petróleo de la Tierra son abiogénicos –no tienen un origen biológico.

Contradiciendo las tradicionales explicaciones, Gold afirma que los hidrocarburos no se disociaron durante los primeros tiempos a causa de las altas temperaturas de la formación planetaria, tal como sostienen los teóricos, sino que, como lo demuestra la actual ciencia geológica, las temperaturas no eran lo suficientemente altas, en especial cuando se tienen en cuenta las presiones relacionadas con la profundidad.

Gold sostiene que las fuentes de hidrocarburos se encuentran a grandes profundidades debajo de la corteza terrestre, y no a pocos kilómetros sino a cientos de kilómetros. Las fuentes profundas de hidrocarburos están todavía funcionando, bombeando toneladas de petróleo y metano a través de las grietas y rocas porosas hasta los niveles sedimentarios más superficiales. Es aquí donde los equipos petroleros acceden a los afloramientos que han sido endicados verticalmente en forma de reservorios de petróleo. Gold afirma que el petróleo no es el resultado de la descomposición de plantas prehistóricas; estaba allí unos cuantos miles de millones de años antes de que la vida apareciera en el planeta.

Gold explica en el libro las últimas informaciones sobre la investigación espacial, muchas de las cuales él mismo descubrió o propuso, que confirma que los hidrocarburos están presentes en cuerpos celestes sin vida como lunas, asteroides, cometas y, por supuesto, en los gigantes gaseosos como Júpiter, Saturno, Urano y Neptuno. De hecho, la coloración azulada de Urano es resultado del metano, uno de los llamados combustibles fósiles. Gold comenta: "Estoy seguro de que no existen pestilentes pantanos en Titán o Plutón". Para apoyar su teoría de la abiogencidad de los hidrocarburos, Gold hace notar lo siguiente:

1. Los patrones geográficos que emergen de los campos petrolíferos, ya sea en el Medio Oriente o en Indonesia, todos muestran correspondencia con estructuras geológicas de gran profundidad. Esto se contrasta notablemente con la distribución al azar que se encuentra en la vida de superficie, y sus subsecuentes fósiles, que jamás han exhibido tales patrones de distribución geográfica.

2. Los hidrocarburos de un campo petrolífero cualquiera no muestran cambios químicos a medida de que la profundidad de extracción aumenta. Sin embargo, los fósiles por encima de él tienen una "firma" geológica que cambia constantemente y que se relaciona con sus particulares períodos paleontológicos.

3. Los hidrocarburos se encuentran en áreas geográficas donde la abundancia de vida prehistórica que se conoce que existía allí no podría jamás haber provisto la cantidad de hidrocarburos involucrados. La mayor parte de la vida de superficie se compone de 90 por ciento de agua y 10 por ciento de compuestos orgánicos. De modo que, aún si todo ese 10 por ciento orgánico se convirtió en "combustible fósil" no estaría ni siquiera cerca de la masa de hidrocarburos que ya se han extraído durante los últimos 130 años.

4. A causa de que los hidrocarburos son tan consistentes, el uso de particulares trazas de metales se pueden usar para identificar su origen geográfico.

5. Los actuales reservorios de petróleo se están rellenando nuevamente –desde el fondo. Gold lo explica: "El fenómeno de los reservorios de petróleo que parecen estarse llenando otra vez es algo ampliamente informado, de manera notable en el Medio Oriente y a lo largo de la Costa del Golfo de los Estados Unidos. Veo esto como una fuerte evidencia que apoya a la teoría del gas proveniente de las profundidades de la Tierra".
El Caso del Carbón

La vida, tal como la conocemos se basa en las propiedades químicas del carbono. Aunque hay discusiones sobre que el silicio es otro elemento que puede proveer una base para la vida, la vida basada en el carbono es todo lo que hemos podido comprobar hasta ahora. El origen, cantidad y el ciclo del carbono son fundamentales para la total comprensión de la vida sobe la Tierra. Como resultado de ello, algunas formas químicas del carbono son también cruciales para la preservación de la vida.

Las áreas oceánicas y terrestres contienen rocas sedimentarias que tienen gran cantidad de materiales basados en el carbono llamados compuestos carboníferos. El 80% de estos compuestos contienen oxígeno; por ejemplo, el carbonato de calcio, más conocido como piedra caliza, es un material oxigenado. El otro 20% que no está oxigenado, se compone de hidrocarburos –petróleo, carbón y metano. Existe también una pequeña fracción de fragmentos que se incluyen en el contenido carbonoso de las capas sedimentarias.

Los compuestos carboníferos también se encuentran en la atmósfera, en su mayor parte como dióxido de carbono y metano. Juntos, la atmósfera y las capas sedimentarias de la tierra y el océano forman lo que se conoce como la "charca océano-atmosférica". El contenido total de carbono en esta charca es enorme, y la inmensa mayoría de este "enriquecimiento cercano a la superficie" del carbono está en los sedimentos y no en la atmósfera.

Venus y los Calentadores Globales

Los ecologistas argumentan que este enriquecimiento de carbono cercano a la superficie se originó de la atmósfera prehistórica, y promueven la noción de que la primitiva atmósfera de la Tierra era muy similar a la del planeta Venus. Ellos dicen que el carbono de la Tierra se precipitó del dióxido de carbono atmosférico a la charca océano-atmosférica; también se produjo una absorción del dióxido de carbono por parte de las plantas.

Para forzar la venta de su agenda del calentamiento global, estos teóricos enfatizan que Venus tiene enormes cantidades del gas de invernadero, el dióxido de carbono y, como resultado, la temperatura en su superficie es de unos 700 grados Farenheit. Sin embargo, estos ecologistas se cuidan de mencionar que Venus está 26 millones de millas más cerca del Sol, o que su órbita es una circunferencia casi perfecta!

A diferencia de los modeladores de clima computarizados o de los políticos con diploma en teología, Gold es un astrofísico que ha pasado años descifrando los detalles de cómo se forman los cuerpos planetarios. De acuerdo con Gold, las condiciones cósmicas generales que formaron a la Tierra y Venus eran muy similares, pero el diablo se esconde entre los detalles. La primitiva Tierra no se caracterizó por la captura de gases del espacio, como Venus. Una indicación de ello es la muy baja cantidad de kriptón y xenón atmosféricos, comparado con el resto del sistema solar.

Gold hace notar que si las rocas carboníferas obtuvieron su carbono de una atmósfera primitiva, los niveles sedimentarios más profundos deberían poseer mayor densidad de componentes carboníferos. Si el carbono hubiese sido precipitado de una atmósfera primitiva que era rica en dióxido de carbono, entonces los especímenes más superficiales de rocas deberían mostrar una sucesiva declinación de compuestos carboníferos.

Como lo demuestra Gold, los registros geológicos prueban lo contrario. No hay una sucesiva declinación de compuestos carboníferos; la densidad se mantiene constante a lo largo del tiempo geológico. "La única explicación sensata" –dice Gold, "es que los gases atmosféricos se han derivado principalmente del desprendimiento de compuestos volátiles de sólidos enterrados en las profundidades, y no de una gran atmósfera inicial adquirida durante la formación de la tierra o por posteriores capturas de gases del espacio".

Más convincente, en mi opinión, es el asunto del carbono-13. En la última década se ha probado que las plantas no inhalan el dióxido de carbono que contiene el isótopo pesado C-13. El proceso de difusión usado por las plantas durante su respiración permite sólo al dióxido de carbono que contiene C-12. Ahora, el C-13 se da en la naturaleza a una tasa del 1%. Esto significa que si los hidrocarburos que fueron sedimentados durante millones de años son el resultado de la descomposición de vida vegetal, estos "combustibles sólidos" deberían mostrar una ausencia de C-13. Sin embargo, las muestras de hidrocarburos obtenidas de pozos profundos no muestran tal constitución isotópica.

Lo que se encuentra es la constitución nucleo-sintética estelar de 99% de C-12 y 1% de C-13. Gold nos advierte que un proceso de fraccionamiento geológico, especialmente del metano, debe tenerse en cuenta al discutir constituciones similares de las rocas carboníferas.

El Asunto del Helio

Impregnando todo descubrimiento de petróleo a lo largo de la historia del mundo, está la presencia de emanaciones de helio. De hecho, es tan abundante en los campos petrolíferos, que las compañías petroleras usan detectores de helio como una de sus herramientas de exploración, y se envasan cantidades comerciales de helio en las áreas de perforación para su venta. Gold dice: "La asociación del helio con los hidrocarburos es, con toda probabilidad, el hecho más impactante que la teoría biogénica (combustibles fósiles) no puede explicar, y ha sido para mí de un gran interés".

El helio es inerte; no reacciona con nada. No es uno de los miembros de la "docena primigenia". (Recientemente, los biofísicos determinaron que los nucleidos estables que eran el original mínimo requerido para el comienzo de la vida sobre la Tierra eran hidrógeno, carbono, nitrógeno, oxígeno, sodio, magnesio, fósforo, azufre, cloro, potasio, calcio y hierro.) La vida vegetal no usa al helio para nada, y no es derivado de la vida. Sin embargo, es un producto fundamental de la nucleosíntesis estelar. También es un reconocido subproducto del decaimiento radioactivo del uranio y del torio. Se sabe que ambos radionucleidos existen a gran profundidad, a unos 320 km. de profundidad.

Curiosamente, el helio no se encuentra en cantidades significantes en áreas que no producen petróleo o metano. Cuando los constituyentes de los pozos de petróleo se analizan para determinar la tasa de helio, los patrones de información son consistentes en todo el planeta. Por si mismo, el helio no tiene las presiones fluidas necesarias para alcanzar la superficie de la manera observada.

Gold explica que la única manera de que tal cantidad y consistencia en las mezclas de helio son posibles, es gracias a la existencia de una profunda fuente de "gas portador" como el metano. La profundidad de estas fuentes está muy por debajo de la profundidad de penetración de la vida de superficie y sus fósiles. (Ver figura 1)

Figura 1:TRANSPORTE DE HELIO EN VOLATILES ASCENDENTES: El esquema de Gold muestra cómo la teoría del gas profundo tomaría cuenta de la asociación del helio con el metano. El helio producido por el decaimiento radioactivo, a niveles de unos 300 km de profundidad, es barrido por la corriente de nitrógeno ascendente. A los 100 km, designado aquí como Región del Metano, el nitrógeno y el helio se mezclan con el metano, y los tres continúan su ascenso. Los tres gases llegan a su destino final con sus relaciones de mezclado determinadas.



La Evidencia del Diamante

Otro ítem que apoya la teoría abiogénica del petróleo es la evidencia que Gold obtuvo de los diamantes, que son una forma pura del carbón. Las temperaturas y presiones requeridas para formar diamantes comienzan a los 110 km de profundidad, donde las presiones son del orden de las 600.000 libras sobre pulgada cuadrada, y están muy por debajo del alcance y supervivencia de los fósiles.

Los ecologistas y otros sostienen que los hidrocarburos no pueden ser creados en regiones de tan altas temperaturas; los diamantes se disociarían allí, dicen, y en consecuencia no podrían haberse creado allí. Esas afirmaciones, sin embargo, no tienen en cuenta los efectos estabilizadores de las altas presiones en la excitación relacionada con la temperatura. En cualquier caso, Gold ha confirmado que entre los espacios intersticiales de los cristales de carbono que constituyen a los diamantes, se encuentran hidrocarburos. La teoría biogénica de los "combustibles fósiles" no tiene ninguna explicación para esta clase de hechos.

El Experimento del Anillo Siljan

Otro ejemplo que usa Gold para ilustrar la teoría abiogénica es el del Anillo Siljan, una estructura producida por el impacto de un meteoro en la zona central de Suecia, cerca de la ciudad de Rattvik. Como está ubicado muy al norte, no se lo considera un sitio donde se podrían encontrar abundantes "combustibles fósiles". El interior de la estructura de impacto tiene muy pocas rocas sedimentarias, como resultado de la explosión causada por el impacto. El interior de la estructura también tiene una roca basal que es sumamente fina.

En 1986, Gold y sus colegas Suecos y americanos perforaron hasta 7,8 km de profundidad a partir del fondo del interior del impacto. La idea era penetrar la corteza más baja y, en lo posible, la parte superior del manto. A estas profundidades y en esta locación, no había posibilidad de existencia de vida de superficie que se hubiese descompuesto a lo largo de los años, lo que la hacía una excelente elección para una investigación científica con intenciones de ensayar la teoría abiogénica de la formación de hidrocarburos.

Hago énfasis sobre "investigación", porque la intención no era la producción de gas o petróleo a gran escala. A pesar de ello, para 1991, el experimento del Anillo Siljan estaba produciendo 80 barriles de crudo diarios. Estas no son cantidades comerciales, pero no era esa la intención del proyecto: la intención era la investigación científica.

Los rusos tomaron nota de los hallazgos científicos de Gold; las principales compañías petroleras americanas no lo hicieron aún. Para 1998, los rusos tenían ya más de 300 pozos, perforados en la roca basal guiados por los resultados del experimento del Anillo Siljan, todos los cuales están produciendo cantidades comerciales de gas natural y petróleo crudo.

Usando el conocimiento y la experiencia ganada por Gold, los rusos transfirieron su tecnología de perforación a sus aliados en Vietnam. Hasta ahora, en lo que se llama el Campo del Tigre Blanco, se han perforado 20 pozos a través de la roca basal. Los vietnamitas están produciendo más de 6.000 barriles diarios de crudo por pozo, en una región donde la teoría biogénica de los "combustibles fósiles" sostiene que no existen hidrocarburos.

Parece que la discusión ha llegado a su fin.

Paul Sheridan es un ingeniero y consultor de la industria automovilística, basado en Dearborn, Michigan.

Latest Developments 2002

Petro Vietnam reported last year that it and foreign partners had invested US$ 580 million in test drilling 31 oil-wells, of which 22 had signs of oil and gas and 8 had oil and gas finds.

PVN exploited 17 million tons of crude and 1.7 billion cu.m of gas, of which 16.8 million tons of crude was exported at US$3.14 billion. It also earned US$3.58 billion from selling 2,400 tons of lubricants and 83,000 tons of chemicals. Tax payment was US$1.8 billion, 30% above target.

In 2002, PVN expects to produce 16.6 million tons of crude oil and 2 billion cu.m of gas. To realise the target, it will look for partners with strong financial and technological capacity and carry out exploratory drilling. It will also step up investment in oil and gas operations in Malaysia, Indonesia, Mongolia and Iraq. Talks on oil exploitation in some African and Middle-East countries are being held.

The industry is accelerating its oil and gas exploitation from a range of offshore oil fields. The Bach Ho (White Tiger) oil field is the leader, with 1.37 million tonnes tapped last year and an average daily output of 38,000 tonnes. Steady progress in oil exploitation has been also reported at the Rong (Dragon), Dai Hung (Big Bear), Rang Dong (Aurona), Hong Ngoc (Ruby) and Bunga-Dekwa drilling sites.

FORTUNE

Tuesday, February 4, 2003

By Julie Creswell

In the quiet waters off the coast of Vietnam lies an area known as Bach Ho,or White Tiger Field. There, and in the nearby Black Bear and Black Lion fields, exploration companies are drilling more than a mile into solid granite--so-called basement rock--for oil.

That's a puzzle: Oil isn't supposed to be found in basement rock, which never rose near the surface of the earth where ancient plants grew and dinosaurs walked. Yet oil is there. Last year the White Tiger Field and nearby areas produced 338,000 barrels per day, and they are estimated to hold about 600 million barrels more.

Oil and natural gas are being found in places no one expected and in greater quantities than anticipated just a decade ago. In the mid-1990s the world's reserves of oil were thought to total about 890 billion barrels. Today reserves stand at 1.1 trillion barrels; the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that continued reserve growth, along with undiscovered resources, could bring world oil estimates to as much as three trillion barrels. "We're finding there are pretty substantial oil reserves in the world," says Tom Ahlbrandt, world energy project chief at the USGS. "New exploration and drilling technologies are making major new discoveries possible."

The increase in reserve estimates is fueling the offbeat theories of maverick scientists who believe that the expression "fossil fuels" is a misnomer and that the earth contains a virtually endless supply of oil. Their ideas fly in the face of the conventional wisdom that oil and natural gas come from the remains of animals and plants buried millions of years ago. Subterranean heat and pressure, mainstream science says, transformed this organic dreck into coal and oil. Though their theories vary, the upstarts believe instead that wellsprings of oil and gas lie deep within the earth, deeper than most oil companies drill, and that supplies are constantly replenished. "With the White Tiger Field in Vietnam, 90% of the production is coming from basement rock, where there were never any fossils," argues C. Warren Hunt, a geologist in Calgary. "What they've been teaching us in school about oil coming from fossils is wrong."

If true, the theories may mean we can stress less about running out of oil: There's more where that came from! We can also worry less about tensions in the Middle East or other hot spots cutting off our long-term supply. Problem is, most scientists scoff at such theories. Oil companies maintain that even if the rebels are right, the cost of searching for and extracting deep oil is prohibitive. Conoco Phillips, the $38-billion-a-year giant, is drilling for oil in the basement rock of the Black Lion Field off the coast of Vietnam. The company says the field is "unique," and the project is economically feasible because the oil is found at relatively shallow levels in the basement rock. "If you drill deeper into basement rock, you're probably going to find some hydrocarbons, but the chance of finding giant fields is pretty small," says Roger Pinkerton,

ConocoPhillips's recently retired head of global exploration. He argues that there are much more accessible--albeit environmentally controversial--sources that will yield plenty of oil for the foreseeable future: to name two, the East Coast of the U.S. and Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge.

Drilling deep into granite probably will never make economic sense unless the industrialized world runs dangerously low on oil or is cut off from its supply. But in the meantime scientists like Thomas Gold, a retired Cornell astronomy professor, are content with poking holes in traditional theories surrounding fossil fuels. It isn't just that hydrocarbons are being discovered in anomalous places like basement rock; Gold notes that primitive hydrocarbons like methane are also found in the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, and other planets.

He laid out his theories, which he believes better address those inconsistencies, in his 1998 book, The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels. He argues that natural gas and oil were created with the earth's formation and reside deep inside the planet. Intense heat and pressure push them from there toward the surface. As to why biological matter (what some deem fossils) is found in oil, Gold says hydrocarbons attract a primitive type of microbe called archaea that lives deep underground; it feeds on and contaminates the oil.

Controversial yet renowned, Gold is credited with figuring out in the 1960s that pulsars were actually radio emissions from rapidly spinning collapsed stars, or neutron stars. To test his non-fossil-fuel theory, Gold in the 1980s persuaded the Swedish government to drill deep in a region near Siljan Lake, about 150 miles north of Stockholm. The Swedes drilled about four miles into basement rock and produced some 80 barrels of oil before the equipment became hopelessly gummed up with putty-like iron oxide. To Gold and his supporters, those 80 barrels were wet, black evidence that oil is no fossil fuel. Critics countered that the oil was merely regurgitated fluid and contaminants from the drilling operation. Because of equipment
failures and ballooning costs, the project was abandoned.

Gold insists that the Siljan Lake results have led Soviet scientists and explorers to drill more than 300 deep wells into basement rock since then, producing some oil--but not vast amounts. (In fact, Russian scientists have entertained theories similar to Gold's for as long as 100 years.) "The U.S. petroleum geological community has a viewpoint firmly opposed to the notion of oil being of nonbiological origin--but not the Russian, Chinese, or Vietnamese," says Gold. "The U.S. has ignored completely the obviously very important Swedish results."

Gold isn't the only Western researcher to offer an alternative theory of where oil comes from. Other scientists argue that seismic activity on the ocean floor triggers a geochemical reaction between carbon and hydrogen that produces oil and natural gas. Still others say that bacteria deep within the earth--not dead dinosaurs--are making more oil every day. Scientists from around the world will gather in London this June to debate the origins of oil at a conference sponsored by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and Britain's Institute of Petroleum.

At this point most scientists believe there's a perfectly logical explanation for why fossil fuels can be found in basement rock. "These are fractured rocks where the basement rock has been uplifted and the adjacent sedimentary rocks [that hold decaying plants and animals] pushed into that space," says USGS research geologist Gregory Ulmishek. He adds, "Geology is an empirical science, and we are sure that all the oil and gas that has been found in 150 years of exploration is of a biological nature." Of course, even long-standing scientific doctrines have been proved wrong. There was that little dogma about the earth's being flat.

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/040521/3/1i5tk.html


Friday May 21, 10:05 PM Russia sees Vietnam JV oil output flat until 2007

By Mikhail Yenukov

MOSCOW, May 21 (Reuters) - A Russian venture key to oil production in Vietnam can maintain current output until 2007 at least despite two decades of production, the head of venture partner Zarubezhneft said on Friday.

"Our specialists believe output can be maintained at around 13 million tonnes a year (260,000 barrels per day) at least until 2007," Nikolai Tokarev told Reuters in an interview.

He added that Vietnamese specialists were more cautious and talks on future production levels were under way.
The state-owned Russian firm has had a 50/50 Vietsovpetro joint venture with Vietnam's Petrovietnam since 1981. It cut production to 13.1 million tonnes in 2003 from 13.47 million tonnes in 2002.

Vietsovpetro produces around 70 percent of all oil in Vietnam, Asia's sixth biggest crude producer, with the bulk of output coming from Vietnam's biggest field, Bach Ho (White Tiger), an ultra-deep offshore deposit.

In 2010, the inter-governmental deal with Russia on Bach Ho expires, but Tokarev said he was confident its terms would be extended beyond then.

Tokarev said Zarubezhneft, a pioneer in communist Vietnam's oil industry, was feeling increased competition from international majors also hungry to book new reserves.

"Competition in Vietnam has warmed up because our success was very encouraging. Today you can see almost all international oil firms in Vietnam," he said.

Among foreign firms involved in Vietnam are U.S. majors ConocoPhillips and Unocal , Britain's BP , Korea's SK Corp and Korea National Oil Corp, and Japan's Nippon Oil Corp and Mitsui .

SHRIMATI MALINI BHATTACHARYA: Of the two oil wells that were mentioned by the hon. Member Shri Lokanath Choudhury, one was in Diamond Harbour which was abondoned in 1984, and the other is in Boral, South 24-Parganas, which happens to fall in my constituency........

SHRIMATI GEETA MUKHERJEE: Another well is in my constituency.

SHRIMATI MALINI BHATTACHARYA. I am not depending on
newspaper reports. I have got direct knowledge of this. So, I would like to know when these two oil wells were abandoned, wether the ONGC made inquiry about it and if there was enquiry whether that report will be laid on the Table of the House. Let it be made public. If there is no underhand dealing here, there should not be any objection to these papers being laid on the Table of the House.

SHRI KRISHAN KUMAR: There is no under-hand dealing or anything at all. The Diamond Harbour well was dug......

MR. SPEAKER: If you have a report, are you ready to place it on
the Table of the House?

SHRI B. SHANKARANAND He is explaining.

SHRI KRISHAN KUMAR: I am explaining that the Diamond Harbour well was dug up to a depth of 5,500 ft. and the available drilling and seismic data indicates that this particular strata is too tight to hold any commercial accumulations of oil. That is the finding in the report. Similarly, drilling in no well has been stopped in West Bengal except on proper technical conclusions. As the Cabinet Minister has said, it does not mean that drilling in West Bengal is not continuing on a vigorous basis. We have been drilling in West Bengal

SHRI CHITTA BASU: Sir, the hon. Minister has told the House that drilling would be continued in the West Bengal basin. That is a good news. But may I know from the hon. Minister whether he is aware of the fact that a number of wells which were drilled have been abandoned recently, namely, Bodra, Deganga and some other wells in Nadiya district. May I know from the hon. Minister whether the Government is agreeable to place the report about all those wells which have been abandoned for the information of the House?

SHRI S. KRISHAN KUMAR: Sir, a well is abandoned only when it is conclusively proved that it is dry and any further investment will be a waste.

Interview: Dr. Colin Campbell - Petroleum Geologist
December 18, 2002

"si se conocen el origen inorgánico del crudo, significa que existen más reservas para explotar, pero las empresas petroleras no les interesa porque, si es cierto, está a unos profundidades que requieren inmensos inversiones para sacarlo. Para evitar esto creyan el "cenit" para aparentar la escasez del crudo.. y luego nos diran.. pero sabemos de este otro tipo de crudo.. (que es lo mismo), así, si la quereis va a costar mucho dinero de sacar"

Así crean una situación de escasez permanente, siempre ganaran mucho dinero.

A strange world of see-through shrimp, crabs and other life forms teems around a newly explored field of thermal vents near the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, scientists report.

.......

Microbes found in the chimneys at Lost City -- named for the research vessel Atlantis -- appear to live off large amounts of methane and hydrogen. There is little or no carbon dioxide, the key energy source for life at black-smoker vents.

Titan's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen but there is also methane and many other organic compounds.

Otra cuestión sería.. ¿Que pasaría si dejen a Ghawar sin inyestar agua?.. ¿volvera en llenarse?..

Gold wryly noted that he was sure there had not been any "big stagnant swamps on Titan" to produce the biological debris that conventionally trained geologists think was required on Earth to produce oil and natural gas as a "fossil fuel."

"If petroleum and natural gas are abiotic as we maintain in 'Black Gold Stranglehold,'" Corsi commented, "then the 'peak oil' fear that we are going to run out of oil may have been based on a giant misconception."

Más convincente, en mi opinión, es el asunto del carbono-13. En la última década se ha probado que las plantas no inhalan el dióxido de carbono que contiene el isótopo pesado C-13. El proceso de difusión usado por las plantas durante su respiración permite sólo al dióxido de carbono que contiene C-12. Ahora, el C-13 se da en la naturaleza a una tasa del 1%. Esto significa que si los hidrocarburos que fueron sedimentados durante millones de años son el resultado de la descomposición de vida vegetal, estos "combustibles sólidos" deberían mostrar una ausencia de C-13. Sin embargo, las muestras de hidrocarburos obtenidas de pozos profundos no muestran tal constitución isotópica.

P/ La globalización está llevando a un rápido crecimiento económico que depende de la energía. Las fuentes de energía se agotan. ¿Cómo puede resolverse este dilema?

Quote by Dr. Morgenes: Por cierto, el incremento de Co2 en la atmosfera es ridiculo, es un gas inocuo, vale, de efecto invernadero, pero el vapor de agua tambien es un gas de efecto invernadero y tiene una presencia muchisimo mayor. A parte en eras geologicas anteriores hubo mucha mayor concentración de Co2 en la atmosfera, y de hecho los estudios corroboran que en el anterior interglaciar las temperaturas fuerón mayores que las de hoy en día. Todo ello sin presencia humana, y curiosamente cuanto mayor Co2 en la atmosefera mayor exhuberancia que demuestra la tierra.

Lo del Co2 es el tema engañabobos, para distraernos del tema estrella, la energía y colarnos de rondón la energía atómica.

A parte en eras geologicas anteriores hubo mucha mayor concentración de Co2 en la atmosfera, y de hecho los estudios corroboran que en el anterior interglaciar las temperaturas fuerón mayores que las de hoy en día.

Quote by Z.Zar:
Por eso algunos promueven el principio de incertidumbre, creo yo.